


I look at him surprised, unable to begin to see what was in his mind

by fidelisinfinitum



Category: Law and Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical major character death, Catholicism, Disconnected Realtionships, M/M, Spoilers for seasons 17 and 18, and probably 19 eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 03:34:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fidelisinfinitum/pseuds/fidelisinfinitum
Summary: I don't want to talk about it, he said, so Carisi said Neither do I, even though he did. He wanted to because there was some sort of darkness inside him, eating him up and he didn't know how to stop it.It had been 49 days since his last confession.





	I look at him surprised, unable to begin to see what was in his mind

**Author's Note:**

> This makes reference to quite a few episodes, especially Heartfelt Passages. and Catholic Church episodes, so this is kinda heavy. It's kinda about the change we see in Carisi in season 18 and hopefully I'll be able to include parts of season 19 when that comes out. This fic has been in the works for a while and I'm actually kinda proud of it.

It felt like the worst feeling in the world, hearing about these threats. Threats on Barba's life that he didn't even know about. What kind of boyfriend was he?

Sonny pushed it aside.

"I'm calling Benson," Rollins said, because Benson was everyone's rock in this unstable world. Sonny hadn't felt that way before. He used to be able to make his own way against the current of life, against all the things that tried to bring him down. But not anymore. Not right now.

Sometimes he felt bad, because he knew everyone else felt that way too. They all leaned on Benson because she was commanding officer, because she was a good example, because she was the only one with her shit together.

"We have a situation here," the blonde says, and suddenly her brow furrows and she quietly says, "Okay, we'll be there." She hangs up the phone and looks at Sonny. She just looks at him, and for a moment her eyes are blank and distant, as if remembering something pushed back far in her brain. They scared him a little, to be honest, and later they would stand out starkly in his memory.

"What?" he asks, even though there's a sickening feeling in his stomach and he's not sure he really wants to know.

"It's Dodds. Munson is holding him hostage."

Carisi thinks he knows for sure what the worst feeling in the world is now, even though this is the second time in only a few months, even though this guy has significantly less to lose.

Because Carisi has so much to lose.

**

They got there and he was already shot and Carisi's thoughts were wild and all over the place until he saw Fin's blank look and the fear on Amanda's face and the way Benson could hardly hold herself together and suddenly he snapped back into something resembling normal. Something holding on to normal desperately with two fingers because the love of his life was getting death threats, and his Sergeant just got shot, and his Lieutenant looked like she was going to collapse on her feet.

"How is he?" Carisi says, because it seems like no one else is going to ask. "How's Dodds?"

"He took a bullet," Benson says, and her voice starts out flat, like she's trying to keep herself detached but ends up almost like a sob.

"How bad?" Rollins asks, and Carisi almost doesn't want to know the answer.

"Bad," she says, and Carisi is afraid it's all he's going to get until she continues. "There was a lot of blood. He, uh," she sounds like she's losing track of her thoughts and that's unsettling for Carisi. "It was a gut shot so they just took him to Lincoln Hospital."

"All right, let's go," Carisi says, ready, as always, to play the comforter, to wait by someone's bedside until they were okay. Because he was going to be okay. There wasn't anything else that could happen. He catches the look Benson has on her face though, and he can't bear it. "Lieutenant, are you all right?" As soon as he says it he feels like a jackass because no one is all right now, not when Mike's been shot.

"No," she says, and Carisi feels like it's the most honest thing she's ever said to him. "We didn't search Munson, so I left Dodds in there. So this is on me." He can hear the tears in her voice and the pain coming from her lips and all he can do is feel his heart beating faster. This is all spiraling out of control and he wishes he had his rosary beads, so he could say the prayers he'd memorized long ago and make everything all right again. But he can't. Not anymore. So he just gets in the drivers seat and starts the car, letting Rollins take care of the rest.

**

He drives to the hospital, and when they get there he volunteers his blood because it's then only thing he can think to do. They draw his blood and give him water and those little animal cookies that his niece loves so much.

They taste like sawdust in his mouth.

Rollins tells him that facial recognition got the guy who threatened Barba, Felipe Heredio. He was in BX9, and Carisi goes to tell the Lieutenant, but can't bring himself to when he sees her. She's asleep on Tucker's shoulder and for the first time Carisi stops to wonder if he's her rock, the same way she is to the rest of them.

Later, he does tell her, and they get assigned to start finding the bastard. Normally, Carisi would delight in finding the person that threatened Barba, but he was worried about Dodds. He didn't complain, and when Benson reminds them to wear their vests he wills himself not to let it show on his face that he's afraid.

A woman bumps into them on their way out, asking where to find Benson. Rollins points her out, and Carisi wonders if it's the fiancée. The one they were going to meet at the wedding.

He straightens his mind out, trying to focus on Heredio.

**

They're back, later, outside the hospital, when they find out. They haven't got Heredio yet, but they will, and there's a note of hopefulness in the air. After all, Dodds got shot before and he's fine. He'll be fine again.

That was before Benson came out. Her head hung and her eyes looked hollow. Carisi was reminded first of how she looked after the townhouse incident (that's what they all called it, if it ever even had to be discussed) but then it hit him. The only way she'd be looking like that was if he-

Rollins slipped into the other room and he could hear her crying quietly. Tucker was walking up to meet Benson, to be her rock, to help her through it, and Fin just stood there. He faced forward, but he looked as if he wasn't seeing anything. He was frozen. There were wet spots on Benson's shoulder, like someone had been crying on her.

Carisi felt like he was going to cry. He didn't want to. He moved on autopilot, going outside, sucking in the fresh air, letting the hot July sun beat down on him, willing his face to stay dry.

**

He went home and didn't flip on the lights, letting the apartment stay in shadow. His answering machine light was blinking, because Carisi had a landline, a relic he knew was becoming uncommon nowadays. He liked it. It was comforting, like a little piece of Staten Island in Manhattan.

It had been 47 days since his last confession.

He didn't like the way he looked at the preacher anymore, with suspicion. He hated the way he felt when he went in there. He just couldn't do it anymore.

Like how Dodds' heart couldn't beat anymore.

He walked over to his cabinet, finding the bottle of scotch he'd only bought for Barba. He hated scotch. It was too strong for him, it was too bitter. He didn't even like black coffee.

He poured a glass and took a long drink.

The red light kept blinking behind him, frantically trying to get his attention.

**

He was a pallbearer at the funeral, in his full dress uniform. He was numb, unfeeling. The weight of the coffin was something he didn't want to think about.

He clinks his glass with Barba at the bar, smiling even if he doesn't feel it. They're celebrating life, Dodds', Barba's, even if the haven't caught the guy yet. Barba says he's not worried, but Carisi feels like that's all he is.

He goes over to Rollins and Fin, tells them that he's going to make the toast. He feels like it's the only thing that he can do that will matter anymore.

"Listen up," Fin says, and it's almost like he's hearing him underwater.

"Raise your glasses," Rollins says, and Carisi can see the tears in her eyes, the dim light reflecting off of them. "A toast."

"To the bravest cop we ever worked with, Sergeant Micheal Dodds." The words feel foreign in his mouth; no one ever called him Micheal. He looks at the picture they have of him in dress uniform. Carisi's eyes water and he tells himself it's because he can't handle his alcohol.

Someone says "To Dodds," and they all repeat it. Carisi looks to Benson, and sees the tears in her eyes too. She's next to Dodds Senior and Carisi doesn't want to imagine what it's like to be him.

His hold on his glass is too strong, but no one says anything.

**

They're laying in Barbra's bed that night, and Carisi feels like he's still in denial. He almost wishes the wake had been open casket, but it wasn't, and it was almost as if it was all a lie. He was on his back, staring up at the ceiling. The air conditioner barely made a noise, because it was a new one, unlike his own, which rattled so much Barba said he could hardly fall asleep at Carisi's.

"It feels unreal, you know," Carisi said, feeling Barba shift next to him. "It's almost like he's still here and we're all missing him, for, for no reason." His throat tightens, and he won't cry now, he can't.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said, so Carisi said "Neither do I," even though he did. He wanted to because there was some sort of darkness inside him, eating him up and he didn't know how to stop it.

It had been 49 days since his last confession.

Carisi knew why he didn't want to talk about it. Carisi knew that Barba thought it could have been him. Carisi knew that no one wants to think about that.

Carisi knew a lot of things, but the one he knew the most was that he was part of the chorus in the song of life. He was always going to be the comforter, the one in the background, and honestly? He was fine with it. So long as it was helping people. So long as it was actually doing something.

For weeks after, Carisi saw the look in Barba's eyes and he was convinced that he could just make it go away if he kept doing what he always had. If he kept being a constant in life's unsolvable equation.

He was like that for everybody now. Even if Carisi was sure he was a completely different person.

It had been 67 days since his last confession.

**

Benson went to Paris, and as happy as Carisi was for her that she was finally getting a vacation, it left him, Rollins, and Fin in a delicate position. They had no commanding officer, and though Fin was due to take the Sergeant's exam soon enough, they danced around each other, unsure of how they fit together in the squad anymore.

Once, Fin was doing paperwork and he passed him to go get sugar to put in his coffee. He called him Dodds, and Carisi couldn't even remember what he was asking for. He froze, the scalding coffee burning his hand through the thin cardboard barrier. He squeezed his eyes shut, but not before he saw Amanda's shocked face, not before Fin started his apology. He had said it was okay, fled to his desk, and drank the steaming coffee black.

It was bitter, like everyone he knew now.

**

It was months later by the time they got the terrorism case, but Carisi still felt Dodds' death weighing on the precinct. He hated passing his picture in the lobby, hated the way Dodds Senior was always at the precinct (silently judging them, he knew, because they had survived and his son hadn't), hated the way Benson triple checked they had their vests on in any sort of dangerous situation.

Hated the way everyone changed because of it.

**

Carisi knew that Fin didn't think about it, pushed it to the back of his mind where it can't seep out, where it wouldn't affect anything. It's not like he told him this, but he knew.

He knew that Amanda didn't think about it, because she didn't need that kind of thing in her life pushing her, weighing on her, not when she had Jesse to take care of. She told him this, in not so simple terms, not even in one whole conversation, but he knew.

He also knew that Olivia thought about it all the time, because he could just see it. He saw it when she double and triple checked that they were all wearing their vests, saw it in her concerned frown when Dodds Senior came to check on them, saw it in her eyes whenever they went past his picture out the squad room door.

Barba, he didn't know anything about. He doubted he thought about it, at least not as much as Carisi did, because he, as much as it pained Carisi to say it, didn't know him as well as he did.

And, if the day came when Rafael Barba became anything else but a mystery, Carisi would probably lose his damn mind.

**

Carisi felt like he was just floating through life, no direction, no purpose. He jumped at the chance of an interview in the Brooklyn DA's office though, because it was Barba, and Carisi would still do anything for Barba.

No, he didn't get the job, he got a call back a week later telling him he didn't get it and it wasn't as if he didn't expect it. Because Carisi hadn't really tried to get it, and he hadn't been optimistic like he'd planned, he'd been jaded and pessimistic, partly because he knew he couldn't leave right now, not after Dodds, and partly because he didn't want it because Barba was giving it to him. He didn't earn it that way.

Partly because he wasn't sure what he wanted in the first place.

It had been 153 days since his last confession.

**Author's Note:**

> Come prompt me on my tumblr (it's under the same name as this account)!


End file.
